five dollars and a pork shop sandwich and the author of how exceptional black women lead and author of they can't kill us all and the author of are we better off. on sunday at 1:15, pulitzer prize winner speaks with charles gibson about his collection of speeches on american principles. >> and i began to speak about the great presidents down the years who have been avid readers of history. many of them wrote history including john kennedy. and even though those who didn't have the benefit of a college education like harry truman read history all their lives and realized it is essential to the role of a leader.

history matters. >> go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> i will be your >> hoshost for the evening. bear with me for a few house keeping rules. please silence anything that might make noise so we can avoid awkward interruuptions during t event. step up so the audience and author can hear you and c-span

and our recording can hear you as well. i speak for everyone who has attended the events before that you put your question in the form of a question and when the event is over we would appreciate it if you could help out the staff by folding up the chair and leaning it against something sturdy. we are pleased to welcome anatomy of terror. he was responsible for supervising and investigating significant terror cases for the bureau. he provides intelligence services to governments and national organizations. his first book, the black banner, was a new york times top 10 best seller. his latest book is in many ways of a continuation of the work in the first volume. he explores the ways in which

bin laden's ideology far from dying with the terrorist has grown in the years with his death ultimately leading to the creation of this islamic state. without further ado, please join me in welcoming our guest. [applause] >> i would like to have a more interaction relationships and hearing your questions. i am sure you have a lot on your mind especially with what we are seeing today in manchester and other places. i was an fbi agent. i started in 1997 with the

bureau and was assigned to the new york office and did something done at the time. i wrote a memo about a guy i believe is going to be dangerous and his name was osama bin laden. at the time, my immediate supervisors didn't know much about bin laden but it made it all the way to the new york fbi office to john o'neill and john knew he had an ongoing case, very closely held in the u.s. government between the fbi and cia in monitoring the activities of this guy who has been trying to create some problems.

i was focusing on iraq at the time and we considered iraq as the state sponsor of terrorism so working this here yt united states and joined by the tax force. also, i worked al-qaeda and bin laden. i found myself in the middle of a lot of big investigations and at one point, you know, some of my commanders if you want to call them in al-qaeda say you are in charge of this investigati

investigation. a lot of these things ended up in 9/11 and east africa bombings and i was involved in so many operations around the world that disrupted terrorist plots. we were successful in stopping al-qaeda and networks from conducting terrorists plots in manchester, actually, in the uk, morocco, saudi arabia, jordan -- they wanted to assassinate the pope and blow up a couple hotels and border crossings israel. i had experience in the organization group and men tally. and the organization that effect us on 911 sees no more. we destroyed the command and

control in afghanistan. many leaders escaped afghanistan, some were killed, some are spending the rest of their life in guantanamo bay although we are able to go to different locations and set-up affiliates for the organization and hear about all that today. some people want to assist with the shabob and others want to assist in the establishment of al-qaeda and iraq and so forth. so after we finished 911 and the investigation of 9/11 and the invasion of iraq, al-qaeda is no more an organization. it became a message and that was a potent message. by the time bin laden was killed

he had affiliates in places like yemen, north africa, algeria, down to molly. they had places in indonesia and southern philippines and even organizations that pledge allegiance to al-qaeda in the balkans and so forth. the organization was spreading but it wasn't spreading as a terrorist and i think if we don't counter the ideology, bin laden will be more poplar dead

than alive. he will become a martyr. i wrote my concerns in a new york times because they contacted me saying can you write something, bin laden just killed, what do you think about it? unfortunately, john o'neill died on 9/11. he left the fbi to become the head of security for the world trade center and he was getting out people from the building when the building collapsed. so i was happy to see bin laden dead because i lost friends and mentors and i lost a lot of people along the way who fought to stop this guy's narrative and blood shed.

i stand before you here and don't feel better about it. 16 years after 9/11 we don't have a comprehensive strategy that puts all of our assets together focusing on eliminating the threat. it is fine and dandy to arrest people now and then and it is fine and dandy to even, you know, use drones and special operations and those guys did a phenomenal job and god bless them. but it is not fair to just stress that military or intelligence. the diplomats have something to do here. people who work in aid programs have something to do here. law enforcement has something to do here. we have since 9/11 a lot of

tactics and most of them have been phenomenally successful. that is why 16 years after 9/11, 20 years almost bin laden declared war on the united states, we have a threat that is way more dangerous today than it used to be back when bin laden did 9/11. on the eve of 9/11, bin laden had 400 members pledging allegiance to al-qaeda and 19 died on 9/11. in iraq and syria alone, they have 20,000 people alone. today, al-qaeda in yemen, which is al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula have between 4-5,000. today aqim, an organization that

was not able to get their act together, they always fought with each other based on boundaries, ethnic boundaries, the blacks won't work with the arabs and the the organizations was also fragmented. they got together and pledged alenga allegiance and all of them pledged it. we see the organization growing. now why is the organization growing. because it is taking advantage of the chaos happening in the middle east and that didn't happening because they the current leader is a genius.

it happened because bin laden ordered it to happen before the bullets took him down. he was watching the arab springs from his hideout. he told commanders forget everything i told you. just hit the united states, hit the head of the snakes. we can kill all regimes if we destroy america or make them so week or scared to be involved in the middle east. now i am telling you something totally different. i am telling you don't send people to go to afghanistan because we are ready according to his words when we said defeated and broke the krauz in afghanistan. now we have to focus on the middle east because what we are experiencing today let's focus

on regimes and when they are falling in libya and falling in tanesia. let us guarantee that nobody is going to come and fill that vacuum. most importantly, let's guarantee that there is no democracy because got forbid the people have the ability to chose. democracy is against sharia so the believers and unbelievers have the same vote and they are equal in their election of what kind of governments they want. there is something called the management of strategy. it is a strategy that has been out

>> create a vacuum, don't allow anybody to fill the vacuum because whoever fills is the dictator working on behalf of the americans as they see it. manage that chaos that is happening over there. declare a state and after you declare a state you can start that. it means a lot of muslims will die and we continue to say to

what? we have to kill them to save them. it changed the whole power structure in the east in a phenomenal way. you see the terrorism is different than it used to be on 9/11. now the terrorist threat is embedded in very complicated few political wars. what is happening in syria is not only a civil war in syria. let's not fool ourselves. it is not only people who want liberty and freedom. that was the very beginning. it is an international conflict. that is why we are there. that is why the russians are there. that is why the iranians and gulf states and turks are there. it is not about the syrian people.

regionally, secretarism is being used to score points against regional power against iran and saudi arabia. we see it all across these conflict zones. who is benefiting directly from that? extremist groups on the shiite and sunni side. may 2nd, 2011 we killed bin laden. we did not kill al-qaeda. those navy seals took down the messenger but unfortunately our political leadership did not take down the message. and that is what we have today. so why did i write this book? i wrote that book because even 16 years after 9/11, we still don't have a deeper understanding of the enemy. what do i mean by that?

>> across the ages, they said if you know your enemy and you know yourself you will win a hundred times in a hundred battles. do we know our enemy on that level? if you watch television we are still fighting 16 years after 9/11. what do we call the enemy? islamic? radical extremist? or this one losers? that indicates we have no understanding of what the enemy is. we talk about the gods and we cannot imagine something like this happening.

we could not imagine. why? our imagination is limited. our imagination is limited with our experiences. it is limited by with our own x expertise and experiences. how do we expand our imagination?

i mean empathy in the clinical sense understanding their reviews of history, understand their views of religion, understand their views of their own history. this is what gives us a better understanding of how they operate. this is what gives us a sense of predictability of what they will do. i hope in a small way i contribute to that understanding. i didn't want to write another terrorism or black banner book like many of these.

this is not what this book is all about. this book is about diving in the personalitys and characters of people who want to do us harm. many who cause so much bloodshed and suffering and understanding them not only on a personal level but also on ideological level. this book tells you the history of the terrorist organizations and the terrorist message we deal with today from the beginning until today. i start with bin laden escaping bora bora and talk about his relationships with his family, his commanders, and his other senior members of al-qaeda. how he was micromanaging al-qaeda. a lot of people say he was in a cave.

no, he was micromanaging the organization and the way he negotiated hostages and the training manuals that they brain washed new recruits with. he was micromanaging the organization. and how the views changed. they changed after 9/11. it became a message and how you control affiliates. he was so concerned his brand needed to be in tact that he sent an order to the islamic order saying you have no idea what i am talking about because you don't speak arabic so the arm of al-qaeda sends everything to french when he sends it over there and says i want them to understand what i am talking about. this is kind of, you know, he was a micromanager in so many ways. bin laden, i go from the time he left afghanistan until the time

he was killed by the navy seals. and then the new leader, they appointed was an interim leader to get all the allegiances from the affiliates and commanders for the one who was known to be the number two al-qaeda. that was an egyptian and was with al-qaeda and i cannot say why he is still alive. he has been with al-qaeda from day one. he was one of the founding members and involved virtually with every operation al-qaeda did against anyone. so, to clear all that against the u.s. interest. he thought 911 could be a

disaster for taliban. only the free loaders, egyptian free loaders who came from dij told him no. bin laden didn't get the votes for 9/11 but went with it anyway. he is collecting all the allegiances because he is well known among the leaders of al-qaeda and trusted. through safe, i introduce al-qaeda from the beginning until he is collecting all the allegiances and then i go to all the different affiliates and what we know about the leaders of affiliates. it is not a terrorism book as much as it is a nashville with characters who created a lot of damage and bloodshed. so understanding the organization, understanding the history of the organization and

understanding all the internal divisions inside the organization. the head of al-qaeda and the horn of africa, the person who basically was instrumental in establishing the movement, haroon in the old days was involved in the east african-american embassy bombing and was the chief of staff for this guy. he told them i think the lottery guy is a free loader. you know, he is not one of us just because he fools bin laden. suddenly he was killed at a checkpoint by the somalia forces. i don't make judgments on who killed him. i keep it up to you to decide by reading the novel. but the most rogue affiliate that gave al-qaeda so much

headache is al-qaeda in iraq. especially that guy who established quiet in iraq. there is a lot of idealogical differences in how the two viewed al-qaeda. one wasn't a member of al-qaeda in afghanistan. later he became a member. so, his view is to basically kill anyone who disagrees with you including shiite and sunnis. in iraq alone, in the biggest sunni province in iraq they killed 250 sunni scholars to evacuate iraq and sunni towns from any religious scholars. most of the hinge men were from

north africa. it didn't start after the arab spring but was always there. al-qaeda established a committee in afghanistan just to focus on the actions. they sent him a letter saying what are you doing. take it easy about the killing like this and guess what? why do you behead people? a bullet can do the job. they are not arguing with him about the killing. they are all for the killing. but how do you do it? beheading? man, it makes people just don't like us. think about the brand. we are brand for that. so, the difference between the leadership in afghanistan is actually the root of the division and the global jihad movement we see later on between al-qaeda and isis; right?

because isis is the group that was established in iraq. hopefully after you read the chapter, you know everything about the iraq war and then you can make our own judgment was the iraq war worth it or not because i look at it from their perspective; right? then we go to look at this old man who has been active in the jihadi movement in the middle east for a long time. so, he introduces the modern middle east and then with the modern middle east we have syria today, we have yemen today. you see how syria and the war in syria gave a new blood line for al-qaeda and isis because when al-qaeda went to iraq, sorry went to syria, the affiliates in iraq went to syria.

what is now isis, the islamic state in iraq at the time, sent commanders to setup an affiliate in syria and then they decided those guys in syria that the syria jihad is different than iran jihad. two different things. we need our own affiliates. al-qaeda and iraq said you are under our own control. they said well, let's go to the leader and ask him. they went to the leaders and said, yeah, syria and iraq are different. oh, you trader. you believe in divisions between iraq and syria? no, no, no. by the way, we established a state and we are going to raise you a caliphate and you have to give us we will not give you. we are the two followers of bin laden. you are a trader. the reason i am telling you this story is because now we see that it is a message.

it is more and more message. if you hear isis or al-qaeda does it really matter? it is the same ideology that was planted in the heads of many of these people by bin laden. right? so what we have today is a message that directly, directly benefits from the chaos that exists. if you want to drown the narrative of extremism, you cannot do it with the war in iraq, and yemen. if you want to do that it is like trying to put down a small kitchen fire with the stove still on. it is providing imagery and places where people can go and train and feel part of a group. ....

they are losing territory left and right in iraq and syria, so in the same time al qaeda is laying low, rebuilding the network, benefiting greatly from the civil wars as i mentioned earlier, so al qaeda is happy to have a ice is take the credit for anything that is happening let's not focus on ice is a little build until we are ready and when isis is no more and when their is no caliph, that allegiant will cease to exist.

so, what's going to happen to these people that are members of isis? i think many of them will go back to the mother organization. now, they won't go back to the mother organization if he is still the leader because they really hate them and i don't blame them. the guy so boring. i try sometimes to watch his 45 minute video tapes. i want to blow myself up just to stop listening to him, i mean, he's the most boring human being you can imagine. at no charisma whatsoever. he never did anything successful failed at every corner of his life, but i think what will happen is, which a qaeda wisemen if you want to call them, the older men of al qaeda i think they have a trump card to play, no pun intended. [laughter] >> i swear. figure of speech.

they are losers, big-time. so, anyway what they are going to do is, i can see after isis ceases to exist i can see them bring in their allotted to be the new leader. first, he jean, he's a millennial. he was trained for the last seven, eight years by some of the top commanders, people his father did not have access to their counsel because they were in house arrest in the same place. he married to the number two person in al qaeda daughter who has been involved in virtually every terrorist attack that happened against us and in the world. masterminded east african embassy bombing himself, so i think he will be the person. he already had about five

different messages. at the very beginning-- in the last message that announcement and a message both referred to him as it shake which indicates a promotion because you cannot be the leader of al qaeda without having the title shake, so i think if you listen to his statement and i have been listening to all of his statements, you will see something interesting. he never attacks isis or mentions the caliphate's. he actually says what's happening in iraq and syria and libya in somalia, what's happening everywhere, all these guys are the followers of osama bin laden and he says look, you people in the west we are now

everywhere and his town, he tried to copy his father. he tried to copy his father. his tone is exactly the tone of osama bin laden and his message identical to what bin laden used to say. same statements, sometimes and in his last statement, the one before last where he gave his commandments for march tourism in the west, he said look, it's hard to-- tyco's many people as you can. don't just take a knife. try to do it right and then he said and always leave a message why you did it. i'm telling you why you did it, so i'm telling you what to say. number one, our land is occupied. the land of the two holy places meaning saudi arabia is occupied.

we do not hear that since osama bin laden died. we did not hear that. he brought it back. palestine, if we don't live in peace in palestine, you will never know peace in america or in the west. that is something bin laden said himself, but also we do not hear that in a long, long time. then he talk about stealing the wealth of the muslim world; right? we did not hear that for a long time. he's bringing it back. he only adds one thing we did not here's father talk about, what's happening in syria. the murders of the assad regime and the russians, which he said we are doing attacks in the west because you are supporting them. that's the only thing he added and frankly he cannot not to

mention syria, one of the largest affiliates of al qaeda. he's pretty back original message of osama bin laden and i talk about his character, his childhood. he was a poster child for al qaeda. the early days if you look at old videotapes of al qaeda he is always saying these fiery speeches, poland's when he was a kid. he told his father, he said father, when i was in jail i learned a lot and you will be proud of me. i learned about this and that, but now i feel i am forged by steel and i'm ready to march with the allegiance under your command took bin laden, from all of his sons, he only wanted to people to come and join him, his wife, which is a phd, older than him and his shield has one. his wife wasn't just a wife.

she was his advisor. she was his wordsmith, his concierge, literally. he wanted her to come not because he missed his wife after she has been in jail in iraq. he wanted her to come and he threatened his commander if you don't bring her kill i will myself go up and bring her here. the commanders are like this guy has lost his mind, but then we know why because he wanted her to basically work on his statement on anniversary-- 10th anniversary of 911. he wanted her to tell him what to say; right? and when they could not bring her to him he actually, you know , was convinced finally and sent her a letter that said the 10th anniversary is coming and you know how important this is, so i told the chief of staff to buy a computer and please start

working on the statement for the 10th anniversary of 911. she pushed him more and more towards following up in his father's footsteps, she's the woman behind the hotter it-- father and the son. so, today we see al qaeda trying to wait until-- i believe after isis window i believe a new bin laden will come and claim that message, claim that ownership of that message and i think they will be successful with that, so six years ago on may 2, 2011, we killed, but ladies and gentlemen the story did not even begin. thank you.

i am open for questions. [applause]. >> the first question is always the easiest one. we know what term strategy is, killed them all, dragged them out. we have had messages or people in the government have tried to do social media and films in the kinds of things that they do in our efforts were called laughable by some experts last night. if you could talk to tromp and he would listen to you,-- >> there's a lot of its. >> what would you suggest? how do we deal with their message? what do we offer instead? >> that's actually a good question and as you probably

expected the answer is not as easy, but i will try to simplified as much as i can. the last chapter of this book calls slaying the hydra and had we killed the hydra and there are some stuff we need to do. first of all we need to deal with the threat as it exists today, not as it existed 16 years ago. so, what are the incubating factors feeding into the threat today? number one, civil wars happening across the middle east. number two, regional power using sectarianism to settle scores against each other and create geopolitical fear of influence in the middle east. number three, a narrative that claims the united states and the west are at war with islam and that's why you have to fight back, even though that narrative is 95% of its victims are

muslims. last ramadan they blew up the mosque of the prophet, where the prophet is varied and then they say they will suspend the defenders of islam, so we have to expose them. we cannot expose them as government. i can guarantee you any government in the world including the us when they start doing this messaging people will laugh at them and they will laugh at them more and tromp putting their hand on that warm and saying go way go, so this is not going to work like this. you have to allow civil society to stand up, communities to stand up and in every country it's going to be different because there is no

cookie-cutter approach. what we have in the united states is different than what we have in belgium, france, germany or guido have community-based recruitment in the us like they have in brussels, for example. we don't have that. most of the threat we have is through social media, people who are disfranchised, people who are alienated listening to this message and they get brainwashed and have no convection with the terrorist group and get inspired in the go-ahead and do it. we have seen that in new york, in san bernardino, in orlando. it's very different than in europe. what we need to do in the us is developing message based on the threat we have here at home on how we can make that message inclusive, so there are a lot of things we need to do, but all these things on talking about fit under one thing called a strategy. believe it or not, 16 years

after nine-11 we have no strategy. that's not even a strategy. we tried that. you cannot kill them all. it's impossible. if you keep doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, so we have to develop a conference of strategy, but only from the three or four things i mentioned and there is a big list to go through, but for the second time you see we need diplomats, civil society, law enforcement. there are some people who are inside these terrorist groups and i always get attacked when i say that, there are only two ways out, a bullet and a handout we have to put that also on the table. we have to understand that, but as long as there are more recruits joining we won't have

enough bullets and we won't have enough handouts, so we need to basically stop the influx of recruits to these organizations. what is creating that influx? it's different from one country to another, but there is one common factor today, these civil wars that have brought what? new fronts of jihad for these groups and that's why we have 5000 foreign fighter from europe 7000 from the former soviet republic. we have about 40000 foreign fighters who want to join terrorist groups in iraq and syria am not talking that those that went to yemen or somalia, but other places. granted, most of these dyes were killed. 20% of them were able to the back to their country and we seen the havoc they were able to create and there are some people who are still there, but they

still instigate and inspire and convince people back home or family members that, friends to conduct terrorist attacks and i think we seen that in manchester from the results of the investigation, so we need to find solutions to these things. i wish the solution was as easy as calling them losers. >> good evening. thank you for your service. >> thank you, sir. >> the recent crisis that has unfolded in recent days, uk police have cut off us law-enforcement from access-- >> four and hour and then realized they need us more than we need them, with all due respect. >> also, today president appearing at nato and apparently his national security staff had to go and clean up his mess so to speak after his speech.

>> that's not news. [laughter] >> what you think the long-term consequences of this sort of schizophrenic approach will be and also your thoughts on the looming terror going into production claimant i love that. i cannot wait until i watch it. the looming tower. it's one of my favorite books. can i say that? i guess i can. larry wright is a mentor of mine , so the first question i think about the information sharing with our partners in the uk peer look, i worked with the folks in the uk and actually was involved 18 years ago in an operation in manchester targeting fighter groups. with the manchester police, they have total jurisdiction over the greater city of manchester. people who handle terrorism in the uk-- the used to do intel

and then after 911 they combine them together. so, i had the pleasure to work with those guys and they had the best of the best and i have nothing but amazing respect for our partners in the uk and as an investigator who was involved in highly sensitive investigation and disruptions i know firsthand how frustrating it is to be working against time, to try to figure out who the terrorists are try to arrest them and suddenly the most precious information you have that gives you the upper hand you see on cnn or read in the "new york times". it's so frustrating and let me tell you, i don't think that it's only frustrating. i think it's dangerous and risks

life and i think it's reckless or quivers doing the leaks needs to be held accountable. now, i don't blame all the leaks to our people here in the united states. i think that is not fair. they are talking about the leaks, for example of the detonator in the "new york times". well, i happen to trust the "new york times". i trust if the "new york times" said that they get the pictures by sources in the british law-enforcement. i happen to trust that. i don't think they are going to say they got it from sources in the british government if the people who gave the pictures are in the us. they could have said law-enforcement. why did they say british? now, the leak of the name i totally agree with our british colleagues and the team that it was leaked in the us, but it's

an international investigation and we should not-- i don't want to repeat what i said about how much i hate leaks, but it is an international investigation and after it was leaked in an ap story the libyans said we arrested his father and brother and this is his father and brother, so the name was going to come out. i think there is a lot of frustration. i don't blame operative's partners for being so frustrated. i understand how it is when you are trying to deal with an imminent threat that caused the government of your country to read-- raise the terrorist threat to critical meaning imminent attack taking place in to see some of the information you have on television. i would be very frustrated, but the only thing i kind of not there yet to blame all the leaks , two people in the us.

may be american media, yes, but not necessarily people in the law enforcement and intelligence community. i am not there yet. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> third question is the hardest is what i've been told. >> that's the sixth question, my friend, so go ahead. >> fair enough. >> you answered a question about balance between military, law enforcement and i'm curious since 1998, the cruise missile strikes in afghanistan and sudan , these airstrikes, rates, drone strikes, missiles had been a very quick sort of swiss army knife and i'm curious how you break the inertia of using these military tactics in place of longer-lasting strategies when they get such favorable results publicly sometimes? >> that's a good question and i think we always go and depend on

our military because they do the job well and they are amazing at what they do. but, i don't think it's fair to have them deal with all the competencies of our politicians are in washington; right? we have been afghanistan-- afghanistan has been at the longest war, more than world war i, world war ii. guess what, the reason we have been there is because under three different administrations the politicians haven't been able to strike a deal in afghanistan, so what we do is the things that washington wants to do best, they break in and kick down the door we will deal with it later and then they say can you stay there, can you do this again? do what again? there like what, seven, 8000 miles away from home trying to secure a tribal society that

never knew the meaning of central government? having the same strategy that was used for 10 years and did not work that well for them either. at doing what? where the diplomats? how are we going to have a deal in afghanistan? we just can't put red line around everything and say they will do a great job. they kick out of van and-- the taliban and secure the country and then politicians fail to deliver. when they fail to deliver we say we will stay in afghanistan some more. it's not fair. just because they do a phenomenal job we should not count on them to do every job. >> thank you. >> in the uprising anywhere,

that intrigue within the organization the personality, what concerns me not just about your presentation, but about the way the issues being dealt with is the three points you mentioned. we don't seem to be able to understand ourselves. in other words, we don't know what we have done in the name of america. most citizens have no idea what's been done throughout the world and it's a shame that we use our young people to fight these wars, which to a large degree we have contributed to. in other words, we are continually cleaning up our own mess, so the point i'm getting at is beyond the intrigue how will we understand the true dynamics of our foreign

policies, what we have done, the truth within their message which exists and how are we going to grab what's going on now so there isn't this endless buyer of hate because the world has to move on? >> i think my answer is one word , knowledge. that exactly the reason i wrote this book and that is the reason i wrote the way i wrote it. >> but you don't deal with our foreign-policy. >> it is there, but i'm not giving you a lecture about our foreign policy. the reader will come to the conclusion of torture is right. you the reader come to the conclusion if the iraq war was in our national security interests. you the reader will look and come to the conclusion about our alliances in the region, what work and what don't work. i don't want to lecture anyone. let them make their own conclusions. after they read the facts as the

bad guys, ipod-- call them bad guys because i think they are evil. i think they are bad guys i fought them for so many years, so they are bad guys, but you can make your own conclusion. we don't have this knowledge. we don't have a deep understanding of what the enemy is and i agree with you and set it sometimes indifferent to speeches. i'm a big-- i love a lot of his strategy advice, but i think the biggest problem we have is this so-called foreign terror that it's not like we did not understand the enemy. we forget who we are as a nation. we lost our moral compass. you know, that gives you an idea how smart he is. >> we create the enemies that we

continually have to fight. >> i hope people will get to that in conclusion. >> how does the us perspective on the war on terror compare with the russians. i trust the russians to be a true ally. >> i think. i don't know if there's an agreement frankly between the administration and between the pentagon and intelligence community about how to approach syria and how to approach the whole situation. i thought it was interesting when the president spoke to the leaders of the muslim world. i think think you lost a significant opportunity to speak to the muslim world. you spoke to 50 people and some have no connections with their people and he spoke with them as if he was speaking to the muslim world. he said, you know, he attacked

iran, rightly so. and he attacked hezbollah because they are helping the asad regime commit atrocities in syria. the iranians and of the lot and the shared militia will have their asses handed to them if it wasn't for the russians. it's russian air support helping on the ground. it's fresh in the bombing that's making them hold their position, so there is something here about how we are not including russia which is part of the problem as much as iran, hezbollah and the other players in the region. and i think this is one of the things that we need to figure out. can we do a deal with the russians to fight this form of terrorism?

the me tell you, the russians are in syria, not only to support asad, but to protect moscow. that's why they are there, not only geopolitically, but from a terrorist prospective. if 7000 who came from the former soviet republic and joined al qaeda and isis in syria and if i am vladimir putin i went to kill them in syria. i don't want them to come back, so there is something we can work with the russians on. however, i don't think there is trust. i think there is a significant gap of mistrust between us and a lot about wise or so-called allies and between russia and their allies and so-called allies. thank you. >> . why do i prejudice islamic clergy is that more out going on providing a solution? >> i think because you probably

don't use google and google how a lot of them stand up and fight against. most of the people in the muslim world are against this thing. i don't see eye to eye with you. many spoke out. many of the clergy spoke out in the muslim world. it's like me saying why don't i see why people protesting in charleston because dylann roof doesn't represent you. dylann roof represents himself an ideology that brainwashed him online and radicalized him, so i'm not one of these guys that jumped and say they are not speaking up. 95% of the victims are muslim. the people fighting isis today in syria and iraq and people fighting a kind are muslim. people dine on the frontline are muslims, so it's not a clash of civilization, my friend.

its shiite and sunni's, sunnis killing shiite, arabs killing persians, what we see today is something we have seen the 16th and 17th century with russian czars and they are battling each other on the same frontline that they battled each other on in the 16th and 17th century. history is not over. history just turned. >> thank you for being here and thank you again for your service. i'm wondering how you think we should approach the problem of or the spread of the radical ideology, i mean, in reading reports about this you hear like a bot of the spread the current places like france and germany and europe, so how do we go about actually combating this

kind of radical ideology, which is less rational. more irrational and based on kind of radicalization and radical interpretation of the religion. >> i would say radicalism and that something that has happened since 1979. radical wahhabi's 2k mosque in mecca as a hostage. they felt they needed to do something to cater to the more extreme elements in their society and create another kind of alliance between the religious establishment to have legitimacy, so basically they told them why are you going to fight the king-- he decide maybe i should,-- myself the protector of the two holy places. why do you want to fight him

when he could've fight those infidel russians, so they stop paying for these people to go to afghanistan and then they supported them and they felt that they are writing a tiger and they know what will happen to them when they get off and we have seen what happened to them. then, they said you want to expand the revolution in southeast asia and africa. we have to counter iran. those sunnis and moderate regular muslims, regular sunnis, those are fools because they will believe i wrong in life, so let's make them radical. unfortunately, that backfired in so many different ways. in the old days we have seen what happened in bali, indonesia now what's happening again to counter iran and suddenly supporting groups like al qaeda became okay because they are the moderates. the people we hate are those, isis.

i think this is one of the things i wish the president forced the saudi's to do instead of putting his hands on the orb. egypt because of the torture of these guys and saudi's because of ideology. we need to hold these guys accountable because they are the first people who will be targeted and get hurts by this terrorist threat. how we combat it differs pick i think in the us we need to create a space, a cyberspace for the good people. of the bad have a stasis. you can go on and radicalized yourself to be a white supremacist or be jihadi or any kind of big it online, but where is my space in your space? it doesn't exist and that something we are doing now, creating a new 5o1c3, a campaign to bring in madison avenue in

bringing silicon valley together in order to create a platform that can be inclusive, american platform, who we are as a nation , a melting pot, sought-- training today and help. ronald reagan used to say you can live in england, but you will never be considered an englishman. you can live in france, but you can never be called a frenchman. but, if you live in america you are an american. lesko back to that. that's what made america great. we cannot say, okay this is called cbe and only for the muslim community because every muslim will be like i don't know what you are talking. then you bring these people who can barely speak english, they look different with big beards, a guy just came from pakistan and say this is the muslim community. really? no one came to me were my family

members are my community to ask me about how i feel about it, so what we need to do is have a comp or hamper conference of platform because hate extremism is not an american value. tolerance is an american value and to give you the platform so you can educate, you can connect with other people, you can mobilize against hate and extremism and you can do with it whatever you want to call the branding is up to you, so you can stand up against white supremacist, stand up against islamists, against anyone you want. we need to create a space because most of the problems we have in america is based on identity. people who have nothing as to do they are losers. this guy in which you call it, in, in orlando wanted to be a cop and no one will hire him. then he went crazy. so, there are so many different

reasons that these guys went on the path, that there is something in common which is an identity issue that kind of elude them to a specific step of historic and religious and theological of how this group see the world today. >> before asking the question i want to say that i really admire you. i admired your totally rational stance against torture. >> thank you. very smart lady. i'm joking. >> well, i will come and pat you. my question and maybe it's simplistic, but you talk about

it just seems that death runs through all of what is extremists are thinking about, killing other people, but also death is-- as a martyr is treasured and it certainly preached i don't see how do you combat people who are so willing to die. >> i mentioned, ma'am, that are some people if they really want to go to heaven we should give them a tickets. [laughter] >> absolutely i believe in that and then let them go into the 69, 79 whatever number of versions they are going to get. is between them, viagra and god. i think what will happen is we need to discredit that i

hockey-- ideology to prevent more people from joining. we cannot sustain what's happening by allowing more and more people to join and people are joining him not because of ideology. people are joining because of the images they see in civil war people are joining because assimilation problems. for example, in europe. people are joining because of secularism. everyone gets into this kind of universe, this orbit that there's different gravity that sucked of them in and i think we need to have a solution that's based on different regions in different countries, but i think what we need to do first is to protect our own country by developing a conference of strategy inside the united states to limit these extremism's and that at the same time engage with diplomatic

initiative in order to express to all the friends and our foes around the world that there is no zero some gain here. you need to have a political solution, not going give them 250 billion-dollar worth of weapons to added to the fire that is already raging in places like yemen and syria. not go in front of the muslim world and talk about how me hundreds of billions of dollars you get and jobs, jobs, jobs. i love jobs, jobs, jobs. belief may. who doesn't? i want these things to come to america, but you are talking to a muslim world where millions of people are hungry and refugee camps. you are talking to a muslim world that people have no infrastructure. most of the arab countries have no electricity, no water. you are talking to a muslim

world where children are dying and you see the pictures of what's happening in yemen. you are talking to a muslim world that more than 65% of young people don't even have jobs. you are talking to a muslim world that is in total mass and you tell them, i just took about 350 million out of your money, jobs, jobs, jobs. i love this. thank you. the speech is great because the bar is so low with all due respect. it's, you know, radical islamic extremism and we didn't say we are at war with islam. great. i love the rhetoric, but the substance itself is disastrous because that is what they are using, stealing our money. exactly. that's the message of osama bin laden. if you have time, cool-- google

to 1996 declaration of osama bin laden. we went backward to the '90s. ,. >> thank you. [applause]. >> thank you so much for that wonderful talking your questions. the book is available for purchase at the register. if you like your copy sign please lineup to my left, you're right. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and now two programs. >> best-selling nonfiction books according to powell's books. topping the list is journalist naomi on how we arrived at a

trump presidency in, no is not enough. that's followed by astrophysicists-- physicist neil degrasse. next on the list is humorous david city heiresses, theft by finding. after that, historian timothy snyder's thoughts on the current political climate. followed by the english translation of nobel prize winning author secondhand times on the disintegration of the soviet union. our look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to powell's books continues with minnesota senator al franken's autobiography, giant of the senate. next on the list is new yorker staff writer david graham with killers of the firemen. about a string of murders in oklahoma during the 1920s that targeted members of the osage indian nation.

after that is eruption, an account of the weeks before and after the explosion of mount saint helens by steve olson. followed by exploration of the differences between human and animal cognition in our we smart enough to know how smart animals are. wrapping up our look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to portland, oregon-- oregon powell's books his pulitzer prize-winning author, the gene, and intimate history. many of these authors have or will appear in the tv. you can watch them on our website, book tv.org. >> this weekend on book tv on our afterwards program senator mike lee recalls the forgotten men and women who fight against a large federal government during america's founding. also this weekend pulitzer prize-winning historian david macola present a collection of

his speeches on american principles. ,,